Keep My Secrets

by Elena Wilkes

  She’d made a call.

  ‘Gavin?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s Frankie Turner.’

  Gavin was her social worker: a genuine, nice, but slow kind of guy. Not very good at his job, but no one wanted a social worker who was on the ball, so he was pretty much perfect.

  ‘I think I should have been to see you or something, shouldn’t I?’ There was the rustle of what sounded like a whole pile of paper. She imagined his desk. Poor Gavin.

  ‘I think we’re overdue.’

  Gavin’s ‘overdue’ made it sound like it was weeks rather than months late.

  ‘You sound a bit upset. Are you upset?’

  ‘I’m not upset, Gavin, I just need your help.’

  ‘Ah.’

  There was more crackling of paper. She knew he had no idea. He was the same with all his clients which made him a total plum when it came to wanting a favour. Gavin was ripe for the picking.

  ‘I need you to come with me into a prison.’

  She could’ve probably asked him for two bottles of voddie right that minute and he would have obliged.

  ‘Say that again?’

  ‘I’m not eighteen yet. I need an escort, and someone who’s not going to blab. I know you won’t blab, will you Gavin?’

  He stalled. ‘Well… Er… I don’t know… What’s making you want to go into a prison Frankie?’

  Gavin always had to pretend he was following some kind of protocol. They both knew where this was going.

  ‘There’s someone I really want to see.’

  ‘Ah.’

  She stayed silent.

  ‘Would you like to share who that someone might be?’ Gavin’s voice wavered, a little uncertain.

  ‘I’d like you to trust me, Gavin.’

  That put his protocol to the test.

  ‘Oh! I see… Well… erm… When were you thinking?’

  She smiled. See, Gavin? That wasn’t so difficult, was it?

  ‘How about this afternoon?’

  * * *

  She had never been inside a prison before. The noise struck her first and then the smell. The Visits Hall was a long, cavernous warehouse of a building, with no natural light. Single prisoners sat in their orange bibs at low coffee tables that were bolted to the floor. Her eyes picked out Martin as though he was sitting in a spotlight. She watched his gaze lift as he drank in the sight of her. She carried her jacket across her stomach, her shoulders straightening defiantly as she walked purposefully towards him. He looked shocked that she’d turned up and she felt stupidly pleased.

  His gaze drifted over to Gavin who had been at great pains to show how much he trusted her by not asking any awkward questions. He manfully thrust out his hand, and Martin, looking unsure, took it.

  ‘I’m Gavin,’ he said, smiling. ‘How about I go and get us all some drinks and cakes and give you two a chance to catch up?’

  He wandered off. Frankie quietly sat and waited for Martin to speak. He looked different. His skin was grey and unhealthy. His deep-set eyes had dark purple circles under them. But he was still Martin underneath it all. She could feel her resolve faltering.

  ‘Thank you for coming to see me, Frankie.’

  Her arms folded across her stomach, bundling up her jacket. She licked her lips.

  ‘You had sex with Charlotte Vale.’

  He looked shocked by the blunt force of the statement.

  ‘I did not. I did not…’ He shook his head emphatically. ‘That did not happen.’

  ‘You were in a relationship with her then. You were seeing her.’

  ‘I was not. I swear to you.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me you’d gone back to the boat with her.’

  ‘There was nothing to tell, Frankie. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. She and I spoke at the party. I told her that you two looked alike – we joked about it. I told you this! Then she started asking me some weird questions.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Like if I’d ever taken roofies? Rohypnol, y’know, that stuff that really knocks you out.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Christ, no!’

  ‘Why was she asking that?’

  ‘I don’t know. It was just like an odd, off-the-wall conversation; she didn’t seem stressed or anything. She came across as relaxed and happy. She was having a nice time, she was a bit high – she was dancing—’

  ‘Yes, I saw.’ Frankie’s mind immediately dragged up the image – sinuous, sexy, laughing.

  ‘But that wasn’t the first time you’d seen her. You’d seen her loads. You admitted it.’

  She would not cry. There would be no tears.

  Martin waved a hand dismissively. ‘She’d asked me a few times if I knew where she could buy a bit of dope, that’s all. People know I have bits and pieces. It’s not a huge deal. I do a little here and there. I said I had a bit stashed and she came to the boat to collect it. Nothing major, nothing big, just a bit of draw, a few pills on a couple of occasions, that’s all – Frankie, look—’

  ‘So why did you take her back to the boat that night?’ The tears threatened but she held tight to her anger.

  ‘It wasn’t like that, Frankie.’ He held out his palms towards her. ‘You ran off. You disappeared. I’d gone into the street trying to find you and suddenly there she was. I told her I was looking for you and suddenly she started crying. She asked me not to leave her on her own – I couldn’t just abandon her, could I? So she walked back to the boat with me. I thought you might have gone there. She was sobbing, but she wouldn’t tell me what was wrong – Look, Frankie, I swear to you…’ He leaned forward. ‘I did not murder that girl. Everything I said in that court was true. I didn’t touch her. I asked her onto the boat because she was upset – nothing else, I swear to you. I went to buy booze. When I came back, she’d gone.’

  Pictures came to her mind in grainy flashes: the black water, the pitch and roll of the boat, the hard feel of the wooden rudder in her palm as her fingertips curled around the edge of the cabin door… the corner of the bed, the discarded covers. She hears a voice and there’s a shifting movement. The door at the far end is open. It’s dark, but in the light from the moon she sees…

  It’s a blur. What did she do?

  She studied Martin’s face, the impassioned, open, pure honesty of it. He looked so real, so genuine. She could look into those eyes and see the truth – but at the same time knowing that what she was seeing was only what she wanted to see.

  She glanced around the room. Men with shaved heads and teardrop tattoos on their cheeks sat thin and hunched at the tables.

  ‘Why didn’t you answer any of my emails or letters?’

  She couldn’t drag her eyes back to his face.

  ‘I’ve needed to see you. Do you know what it’s been like in here without you, not knowing what’s been going on?’

  She gave a little shake of the head. She was hearing the words but wanted to shut them out.

  ‘I need to ask you something.’

  ‘About?’

  ‘That night.’

  She saw a flash of a silhouette, bent over.

  ‘You were there. You said you came to the boat.’

  She remembered the outline of his shoulders with his back to her against the carbon blue of the night sky – so absorbed in his task that he didn’t hear her tread. And then a girl’s voice… and she sees—

  Charlotte.

  And Martin.

  He was lying.

  She remembered her rage – white hot. She felt it again now: the sheer thundering fury that made her grip that piece of wood and metal, feeling her fingernails biting into the heel of her palm. She remembered looking down and seeing that red stripe of discarded hairband lying on the deck, and then feeling the slippery wet of blood on her palms as the cuts opened up, the anger in her silently boiling higher – and then the next thing she was aware of was running, the pounding of her feet and the pounding of her heart—

  ‘Yes.’

&
nbsp; She knows why he’s asking these questions.

  ‘And you saw nothing?’

  She watched his face, savouring the moment, letting him know that she knew, letting him feel her power.

  ‘It’s just… Frankie, when I saw you the next day… You had blood on your face and hands. I know they found DNA that they have no match for… I don’t know how to ask this…’

  ‘I come bringing gifts!’ Gavin’s moony face appeared, plonking a tray with tea and cakes in cellophane on the table in front of them. He chuckled from one to the other and then realised that no one was joining in.

  ‘Oh dear!’ he said nervously. ‘Should I go away again?’

  They both looked at him.

  ‘I’ll go away again then, shall I? Maybe see if I can find the facilities.’

  He trundled off like a little cartoon character in his flat suede shoes. Frankie put her jacket on the table and drew her shoulders back. Martin’s gaze stayed glued to her face.

  ‘I don’t remember anything about that night.’ She stared intently back.

  ‘You don’t remember anything?’

  ‘I was stoned, I was drunk. I don’t remember.’

  His gaze didn’t waver. He swallowed.

  ‘You didn’t see Charlotte?’

  ‘No.’ She didn’t drop her eyes.

  ‘You’re sure that’s true?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He breathed and his whole body slumped with relief. ‘I don’t want you back at that court again, Frankie. As much as I love the idea of seeing you, it’s not safe.’

  She stayed silent.

  ‘I don’t want the police to see or think anything where you’re concerned. I want you to keep right out of it.’

  Jude’s warning came back to her. She was a girl from a care home. She was poor. She was trouble. She was easy prey.

  ‘Will you do that for me?’ His eyes dropped down briefly, and a stunned shock of realisation coloured his face in that instant. The round ‘O’ of his mouth wouldn’t let the words out.

  ‘Frankie—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re…’

  He was struck dumb. His mouth worked oddly at the realisation she was pregnant.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  She gave a little jerk of her shoulder.

  ‘Jesus.’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I didn’t know what I was going to do.’

  ‘What you were—?’ He looked at her. ‘You wanted to decide without me?’

  ‘I had to decide without you.’

  He stopped and his hand fell. ‘What do you mean?’

  She stayed silent.

  ‘You’re cutting me out,’ he said dully. His eyes winced, painfully. ‘You believe what they’re saying about me and Charlotte being in a relationship.’ He studied her. ‘Is that what your heart says?’

  Her heart felt as though it was bleeding from a thousand cuts.

  ‘Have people got inside your head, Frankie? Is that what’s happened? Is that why you haven’t told me about the baby?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head stubbornly.

  ‘Is it Jude?’

  She put her hand on her stomach. ‘She doesn’t know.’

  He looked at her in disbelief. ‘How can she have not noticed?’

  ‘In exactly the same way you didn’t.’ Frankie smiled grimly. ‘Only one of the girls knows and she won’t say anything. I’ve worn baggy clothes and I’ve been staying out and going back late.’

  ‘Staying out? With who?’

  ‘No one. Just out.’

  ‘Frankie.’ He took a deep breath in. ‘Just tell me.’

  ‘Charlotte’s parents.’

  ‘Charlotte’s par—?’ Martin’s face fell in shock and then terror. His head dropped into his hands and he groaned like a wounded animal.

  ‘What have you done, Frankie? What have you done? Why them, for pity’s sake?’

  Martin looked like a man in pain. She was glad. She wanted to sit here and let him feel every blow she could muster. Him and Charlotte. Charlotte and him. The liar.

  ‘Her mum. Vanessa. At the court. She found me. She looked after me, when…’ She stopped at the pain of the memory. ‘I didn’t know it was her. I didn’t realise at first, and then…’ She looked away. ‘She was nice to me.’

  ‘Why would you want to be anywhere near that family, Frankie? And they know about you and me, do they?’

  She gave a tiny nod. There was no her and Martin. She was alone – Again. There was just a man sitting across a grubby table, one that she had been stupid enough to come and see. That’s all there was.

  ‘It just doesn’t make sense… I can’t get my head around it. None of it. A baby… You being pregnant…’ His head swung slowly from side to side. ‘This changes everything, you know that don’t you, Frankie? Everything. They have nothing to convict me on – not really. They can’t prove I did it. There’s no concrete evidence tying me to her murder – and I did not do it, Frankie. I swear on… on…’ He glanced round. ‘…On that baby’s life. I didn’t kill Charlotte Vale.’

  ‘Don’t!’ Both arms came to protectively cover her belly.

  ‘I’ve not mentioned your name at all: not to anyone. I’ve protected you from being involved all this time, Frankie. So will you do this one thing for me?’

  Her guts felt like stone.

  ‘You have to give me a chance when all this is over.’ His eyes burned into her. ‘You have to say you’ll be there for me when I walk out of that court. Don’t throw away what we had – and definitely not now. I’m walking out of that dock and straight back to you if you’ll have me.’ He went to reach for her hand.

  ‘Oi!’ said the voice of an officer over by the desk. ‘No touching!’

  ‘We’re going to be together, the three of us: you and me and that baby, Frankie. Nothing is going to keep me away.’

  * * *

  The steam on the bathroom walls had turned to running tears of condensation. She listened to the crackle of the foam as it disappeared around her.

  Who was there for her now?

  No one.

  Who could she confide in?

  No one.

  It was all impossible; life on her own with a child felt impossible. Her head and heart wrestled with a mess of intertwined emotions that she just couldn’t untangle.

  She’d loved Martin with all her heart.

  She hated Martin to the core of her soul.

  Martin.

  Charlotte.

  She had bound herself to him in a way that couldn’t be broken. She was having his child.

  But you can’t love a man who’s done these things to you, her head said.

  I can’t, I can’t. I don’t, she said back.

  He’s a liar and he betrayed you, the voice was insistent now. He deserves to be punished.

  But punished for what? What happened that night?

  She tried to bring back the white rage she had felt, but couldn’t. She tried to conjure up the sound of the water, the girl’s voice; there’d been the splash of birds, hadn’t there? But it was as though the tape-loop ended: stuck in a freeze frame. Her mind stumbled and floundered.

  Lifting her hands from the water, she pressed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets until she saw stars. God, how she wished she could erase all this horror. How she wished there was a reset button and she could make all of it disappear – Wouldn’t that be something? The sheer joy of rubbing it all out. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. A pure and perfect fantasy where there was no Charlotte, there’d been no party, no boat, no past, just present. Her heart lifted: just two clean slates waiting for the future to be written. Their tiny family could become—

  The lights went off.

  She shot up, her heels squealing against the enamel as the sudden crack of the door opening behind her had her wheeling round in a tide of water. She groped for the towel, but her fingers onl
y closed on thin air. She was aware of the light from the landing sending a shaft through the darkness. In the doorway was a figure: a black silhouette. Her breath dragged into her lungs in a gasp of shocked air.

  ‘Who’s there?’

  But the darkness was silent. The silhouette swayed slightly.

  Gathering herself, she scrambled to the other end of the bath, her shoulder blades pressing painfully into the taps as she drew her knees up to her chin.

  ‘Who is it? Jack? Peter? What do you want?’

  ‘You’re so beautiful,’ the blackness whispered. ‘I love seeing you naked.’

  She watched, horrified, as the shape came towards her. Her hands and feet scrambled for purchase on the slippery enamel, her breath catching tight in her lungs, her mouth paralysed with shock as a cold draught moved swiftly, the dark figure looming closer as it bent and dipped, forcing her to turn her face away in terror. She screwed up her eyes as a tiny warmth of breath whispered across her cheek and the pressure of fingers touched the top of her spine.

  Her foot slipped. She heard a sound, a strangled cry coming from deep inside her as the water slammed into her ears and eyes. Her lungs screaming pointlessly. Hands flailing, she fought and floundered, grasping on the solid sides of the bath and hauling herself up, coughing and heaving and instantly blinded as the light came on.

  Spluttering, she shook the water from her eyes as the sound of running feet and someone shouting rammed its way into her muddled brain.

  ‘Frankie! Frankie! What is it?’

  Vanessa’s frenzied yells hurtled up the stairs. She crashed through the door and stood panting in the doorway, eyes blazing with panic, before rushing over to grab her, hauling her out of the bath and grabbing for a towel. Frankie’s teeth chattered wildly inside her head. She couldn’t stop shaking.

  ‘My god, what’s wrong? What happened? Are you okay?’ She rubbed the towel vigorously up and down Frankie’s shoulders, patting and holding her close and stroking her hair back.

  ‘There-there was someone here.’

  ‘What?’